When Innocence is Lost
by K. Pepper
Summary: This is what happens when I think too much... This is just a little one-shot dealing with Allouette, and what may be going through her mind a long time in the future.


Okay, I officially think too much, and sitting on my laptop at midnight with the urge to type ended up producing this little one-shot... which is strange, because I don't do one-shots. I also chose the weirdes character to write a one-shot about, since I've never thougth much of her until now. But what the hay, it's my delving into the unknown and experimenting with present tense writing. (That and lack of sleep...) Anyway, I guess I really just wrote this for something to do; I don't really expect any feedback, but if I get some, that's cool, too. If it really is a waste, let me know, and I'll just take it back off.

Ri

When Innocence is Lost

She watches with the eyes of a child. At least, they hadonce belonged to a child. Now… who can say? Downcast, the twin pools of blue examine some distant, unnamed point out the window, past the horizon, away, where no physical sense can reach, but the heart… it yearns for the freedom of the unknown. What do you call a child who is not a child? She does not know, and probably will never know. She wasn't made to be a philosopher, but she cannot help herself from running her mind in those old, familiar circles once again. She wasn't made to be anything, for that matter… Anything, but a child. But how long can a child remain a child? And how long can the innocence last, in a world where innocence has died a long time ago? Allouette has seen enough blood and war and tears and pain that the naivety of her artificial childhood has long since left her.

_Left… along with everyone I knew._ True, the war is over. It has been for almost a hundred years. Most would consider this a long-awaited and well-deserved peace. She doesn't know what to consider it; what was this "peace?" A rest between wars? A time when all of the fighting is political instead of on a battlefield? She sighs, turning away from the window and the overcast day beyond. She realizes that there are those who are still working to better society, to keep things in check and assure the safety and prosperity of the citizens. Sage Harpuia is still there, wise and just as ever, playing the political games that it took to help run a country. Zero is out there, somewhere, no doubt doing the same. She tries her best to remember all of the other reploids that she had once known, and imagine what they may be doing now, but most of the names have grown fuzzy and distant in her memory, and she gives up eventually.

_Ciel_… Yes, Ciel. The only "mother" she has ever known, naïve leader of the Resistance all those years ago… _What do I do now, Mom? You made me… you made me to be this way forever. But what am I supposed to do?_ She sits heavily in a chair, her young, childish face pulled into an expression of sad abstraction, her eyes showing that she is, in fact, no child. Ciel, of course, has passed away with age, as all humans do, but that doesn't really help Allouette any. At least the other reploids have adult bodies and have been made for some purpose, even if it is just to live and love and work their lives away. And yet, she has been created… _For what? To be someone's daughter. And yet, with my mother gone, where does that leave me? I am a child, but not a child; different from any other reploid, but not lacking the same feelings of the heart._

A single, silent tear slides down her smooth cheek. Of course she could feel love; she had felt love for her mother… and she had felt love…_ Don't do this to yourself. There's nothing to be done for it, so why bother? _But the memories, now awoken, will not cease flowing, and she purses her lips together and closes her eyes, holding back tears._ Zero… where are you now? What's become of you? I'm… all alone here. With only your memory to keep me company. Silly, huh? All these years, you think I would have grown up a bit more than this…_

It is true, she had loved him- still loves him- but, of course, there is no way that she could ever reveal her feelings. After all, she is a child… right?

Twin pools of blue gaze up at the overcast, ever-darkening evening sky. The eyes of a child… and not a child, knowledge and wisdom tainting them with their bitter-sweet curse, stealing away the last traces of childhood and leaving, in their wake, the bittersweet understanding of life.


End file.
